Neural and behavioral traces of error awareness

Monitoring for errors and behavioral adjustments after errors are essential for daily life. A question that has not been addressed systematically yet, is whether consciously perceived errors lead to different behavioral adjustments compared to unperceived errors. Our goal was to develop a task that would enable us to study different commonly observed neural correlates of error processing and post-error adjustments in their relation to error awareness and accuracy confidence in a single experiment. We assessed performance in a new number judgement error awareness task in 70 participants. We used multiple, robust, single-trial EEG regressions to investigate the link between neural correlates of error processing (e.g., error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe)) and error awareness. We found that only aware errors had a slowing effect on reaction times in consecutive trials, but this slowing was not accompanied by post-error increases in accuracy. On a neural level, error awareness and confidence had a modulating effect on both the ERN and Pe, whereby the Pe was most predictive of participants’ error awareness. Additionally, we found partial support for a mediating role of error awareness on the coupling between the ERN and behavioral adjustments in the following trial. Our results corroborate previous findings that show both an ERN/Pe and a post-error behavioral adaptation modulation by error awareness. This suggests that conscious error perception can support meta-control processes balancing the recruitment of proactive and reactive control. Furthermore, this study strengthens the role of the Pe as a robust neural index of error awareness

Event-Related Potential Correlates of Performance-Monitoring in a Lateralized Time-Estimation Task

Performance-monitoring as a key function of cognitive control covers a wide range of diverse processes to enable goal directed behavior and to avoid maladjustments. Several event-related brain potentials (ERP) are associated with performance-monitoring, but their conceptual background differs. For example, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) is associated with unexpected performance feedback and might serve as a teaching signal for adaptational processes, whereas the error-related negativity (ERN) is associated with error commission and subsequent behavioral adaptation. The N2 is visible in the EEG when the participant successfully inhibits a response following a cue and thereby adapts to a given stop-signal. Here, we present an innovative paradigm to concurrently study these different performance-monitoring-related ERPs. In 24 participants a tactile time-estimation task interspersed with infrequent stop-signal trials reliably elicited all three ERPs. Sensory input and motor output were completely lateralized, in order to estimate any hemispheric processing preferences for the different aspects of performance monitoring associated with these ERPs. In accordance with the literature our data suggest augmented inhibitory capabilities in the right hemisphere given that stop-trial performance was significantly better with left- as compared to right-hand stop-signals. In line with this, the N2 scalp distribution was generally shifted to the right in addition to an ipsilateral shift in relation to the response hand. Other than that, task lateralization affected neither behavior related to error and feedback processing nor ERN or FRN. Comparing the ERP topographies using the Global Map Dissimilarity index, a large topographic overlap was found between all considered components.With an evenly distributed set of trials and a split-half reliability for all ERP components ≥.85 the task is well suited to efficiently study N2, ERN, and FRN concurrently which might prove useful for group comparisons, especially in clinical populations

Context specificity of post-error and post-conflict cognitive control adjustments

There has been accumulating evidence that cognitive control can be adaptively regulated by monitoring for processing conflict as an index of online control demands. However, it is not yet known whether top-down control mechanisms respond to processing conflict in a manner specific to the operative task context or confer a more generalized benefit. While previous studies have examined the taskset-specificity of conflict adaptation effects, yielding inconsistent results, controlrelated performance adjustments following errors have been largely overlooked. This gap in the literature underscores recent debate as to whether post-error performance represents a strategic, control-mediated mechanism or a nonstrategic consequence of attentional orienting. In the present study, evidence of generalized control following both high conflict correct trials and errors was explored in a task-switching paradigm. Conflict adaptation effects were not found to generalize across tasksets, despite a shared response set. In contrast, post-error slowing effects were found to extend to the inactive taskset and were predictive of enhanced post-error accuracy. In addition, post-error performance adjustments were found to persist for several trials and across multiple task switches, a finding inconsistent with attentional orienting accounts of post-error slowing. These findings indicate that error-related control adjustments confer a generalized performance benefit and suggest dissociable mechanisms of post-conflict and post-error control. © 2014 Forster, Cho

Testing theories of post-error slowing

People tend to slow down after they make an error. This phenomenon, generally referred to as post-error slowing, has been hypothesized to reflect perceptual distraction, time wasted on irrelevant processes, an a priori bias against the response made in error, increased variability in a priori bias, or an increase in response caution. Although the response caution interpretation has dominated the empirical literature, little research has attempted to test this interpretation in the context of a formal process model. Here, we used the drift diffusion model to isolate and identify the psychological processes responsible for post-error slowing. In a very large lexical decision data set, we found that post-error slowing was associated with an increase in response caution and—to a lesser extent—a change in response bias. In the present data set, we found no evidence that post-error slowing is caused by perceptual distraction or time wasted on irrelevant processes. These results support a response-monitoring account of post-error slowing

Cascade of Neural Events Leading from Error Commission to Subsequent Awareness Revealed Using EEG Source Imaging

The goal of the present study was to shed light on the respective contributions of three important action monitoring brain regions (i.e. cingulate cortex, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex) during the conscious detection of response errors. To this end, fourteen healthy adults performed a speeded Go/Nogo task comprising Nogo trials of varying levels of difficulty, designed to elicit aware and unaware errors. Error awareness was indicated by participants with a second key press after the target key press. Meanwhile, electromyogram (EMG) from the response hand was recorded in addition to high-density scalp electroencephalogram (EEG). In the EMG-locked grand averages, aware errors clearly elicited an error-related negativity (ERN) reflecting error detection, and a later error positivity (Pe) reflecting conscious error awareness. However, no Pe was recorded after unaware errors or hits. These results are in line with previous studies suggesting that error awareness is associated with generation of the Pe. Source localisation results confirmed that the posterior cingulate motor area was the main generator of the ERN. However, inverse solution results also point to the involvement of the left posterior insula during the time interval of the Pe, and hence error awareness. Moreover, consecutive to this insular activity, the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was activated in response to aware and unaware errors but not in response to hits, consistent with the implication of this area in the evaluation of the value of an error. These results reveal a precise sequence of activations in these three non-overlapping brain regions following error commission, enabling a progressive differentiation between aware and unaware errors as a function of time elapsed, thanks to the involvement first of interoceptive or proprioceptive processes (left insula), later leading to the detection of a breach in the prepotent response mode (right OFC)

Neuronale Grundlagen der Interferenz zwischen Handlung und visueller Wahrnehmung

Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist der handlungsinduzierte blindness-Effekt (action induced blindness, AIB). Hier werden zunächst verschiedene blindness-Effekte beschrieben, um diese vom AIB-Effekt abzugrenzen. Da der AIB-Effekt mit dem Paradigma der Psychologischen Refraktärperiode (PRP-Paradigma) untersucht wird, geht der Abschnitt 2.2. genauer auf das Paradigma und die zu erwartenden behavioralen Effekte ein. Anschließend werden die in psychophysischen Experimenten (Müsseler & Wühr, 2002) beschriebenen Interferenzen zwischen motorischen Reaktionen und visuellen Identifikationsleistungen dargestellt, die die Grundlage der Experimente dieser Arbeit sind

Surprise and error: Common neuronal architecture for the processing of errors and novelty

Contains fulltext : 102927.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)According to recent accounts, the processing of errors and generally infrequent, surprising (novel) events share a common neuroanatomical substrate. Direct empirical evidence for this common processing network in humans is, however, scarce. To test this hypothesis, we administered a hybrid error-monitoring/novelty-oddball task in which the frequency of novel, surprising trials was dynamically matched to the frequency of errors. Using scalp electroencephalographic recordings and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we compared neural responses to errors with neural responses to novel events. In Experiment 1, independent component analysis of scalp ERP data revealed a common neural generator implicated in the generation of both the error-related negativity (ERN) and the novelty-related frontocentral N2. In Experiment 2, this pattern was confirmed by a conjunction analysis of event-related fMRI, which showed significantly elevated BOLD activity following both types of trials in the posterior medial frontal cortex, including the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC), the neuronal generator of the ERN. Together, these findings provide direct evidence of a common neural system underlying the processing of errors and novel events. This appears to be at odds with prominent theories of the ERN and aMCC. In particular, the reinforcement learning theory of the ERN may need to be modified because it may not suffice as a fully integrative model of aMCC function. Whenever course and outcome of an action violates expectancies (not necessarily related to reward), the aMCC seems to be engaged in evaluating the necessity of behavioral adaptation.10 p